


Operation: Be Nicer to Klaus

by Rarae



Series: I am not there, I do not sleep [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Honest Conversations, Family Bonding, Gardening, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, No Incest, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Torture, Rated M for language, References to gun violence, References to past death, Talking Like Adults, You should probably read part one before this one, and he'll get one, discussion of abuse, knitting apparently, siblings actually talking about their issues, spontaneous family trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:36:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22917091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rarae/pseuds/Rarae
Summary: After everything is all said and done, the Hargreeves siblings try to make up for all the times they ignored Klaus.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: I am not there, I do not sleep [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647169
Comments: 130
Kudos: 1018





	1. Five

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be honest. This chapter was a struggle to write, is only somewhat edited, and is only being posted now (instead of after completion) as an attempt to encourage me to write more. 
> 
> Each sibling will have their own section and bonding time with Klaus. Starting with Five because why not!

Several days had passed since their miraculous return to an apocalypse-free future and Klaus had yet to be cornered and interrogated by Ben (or anyone else for that matter) about what exactly had gone on over the past four years. Maybe they didn’t really care after all. Klaus shrugged at the thought.

Caring about each other was not a skill he and his siblings practiced often. It was sort of like how comatose people’s leg muscles start to deteriorate after a while of them not using them. Though in this case Klaus wasn’t sure the muscles had ever been there in the first place. Can’t exercise what you don’t have.

Either way, Klaus wasn’t surprised they had all moved on so quickly and what he had been through had been glossed over, like always. With no visible bruises or scars to remind everyone what had happened it was almost as if it _didn’t_ happen.

And you know what? Maybe it didn’t. Maybe nothing did happen. What are memories anyways? Just a bunch of synapses or neurons or whatever the fuck they are firing in all sorts of ways. You can’t prove something did actually happen beyond what he remembers and his memory is so shit anyways, maybe he just made everything up for attention. 

Yeah, that sounds like me. Klaus the goof-off was just exaggerating as per fucking usual, Klaus thought.

He, of course, knew he was just talking around the issue and that he didn’t really imagine it or make anything up, but there was no sense in meditating on those pesky little neurons. Focusing on the past never did any good and it was better that he just move on like the others. No need to acknowledge this little escapade. It happened more than a ~~week~~ decade ago anyways.

***

Meanwhile, Ben and the rest of the Hargreeves had been stewing in their own various guilts and trying to figure out how to bring up what must be an extremely sensitive and painful subject with their brother. They all wanted answers and to be a better family but none of them were quite sure how to go about it– see previous metaphor about muscles.

“I don’t know. I just kind of thought he would bring it up and then we could talk about it,” Luther shrugged.

Ben snorted. “Yeah, right. Klaus’s middle name is avoidance. He doesn’t talk about anything important until the absolute last minute and even then he tries to squirrel his way out of it.”

“Like we saw him do in the infirmary,” Vanya jutted in.

“Exactly,” Ben agreed. “He’s not going to bring it up unless we do.”

“Yeah and how would that conversation go?” Five asked, who was sitting on the kitchen counter overseeing the rest of the Hargreeves, who were seated at the kitchen table sans one Klaus Hargreeves. “ _Hey remember how Reginald killed you over and over again for funsies and we didn’t do anything to stop him or even notice? Want to talk more about it?_ ” he mocked. “Like that would go over well.”

Diego sneered at him. “Well, _obviously,_ we’d need to bring it up, like, _nicer_ than that.”

“I don’t think he’s going to respond well no matter who brings it up, except for maybe Ben,” Allison said, considering. “We just… don’t have a good enough relationship with him, I think.

Ben looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I still don’t think he’d talk about it with me either. After all, he didn’t bring it up all the years we were in the past. I doubt much has changed.”

“And for him it hasn’t,” Five pointed out. “He’s just been doing life as usual. The only difference now is that _we_ know.”

“And it’s not like we’re done a lot with that information since coming back,” Vanya agreed. “He’s probably thinking we don’t care at this point,” she trailed off

Diego jerked back, turning to look at Vanya. “What? Why would he think that? We’re family.”

Five huffed and kicked his legs against the cupboards in a distinctly child-like reaction of annoyance that matched his physical age more than he wanted to admit. “Yeah, and we’ve done a great job at acting like one, haven’t we?”

“That’s why we need to think of a way to _gently_ bring it up with Klaus,” Ben said, trying to defuse the fight before it had a chance to really begin. Group conversations with this family were like herding cats, only with more bloodshed and infighting.

Nonetheless, like the moment of stillness before a roller coaster plummets downward, there was a brief second of silence after Ben’s statement.

Luther shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Do we really need to bring it up?” The silence was broken and the coaster shot downwards.

The cacophony of protests that followed this question would have made a child cry if one happened to be there. 

“What do you mean–” “Of course–” “–not care?” “–would you like it–” The voices overlapped as each of them spoke over each other in protest.

“Wait, wait!” Luther protested. “That’s _not_ what I meant!” The group quieted down enough for him to speak, though Diego still looked ready to pull out a knife at the slightest aggravation. “I just meant, what if we let him bring it up to us, not the other way around?”

Allison gave him an odd look. “We already talked about that, Luther. He’s not going to do that.”

“Yeah, but,” he looked uncomfortable, shoulders hunching in on themselves. Despite trying to head the family for the past several years, Luther was the least experienced out of all of them when it came to matters of emotions. “What if we could make him more comfortable?”

Ben narrowed his eyes at him, looking intrigued. “What do you mean?” There were various nods of agreement.

“Well, like we were talking about before. We’ve never really acted like a family,” he said with a frown. “So what if we did? You know, spend more time with him and with each other and just work on our relationship, I guess. And then when he’s comfortable enough he can bring it up himself.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You know, as much as I hate to admit it,” Five started, “he’s got a point. We need to work on the whole ‘being a family thing’ and Klaus is a good place to start.”

“You shouldn’t just spend time with him just because you think you _should,_ like it’s some sort of obligation,” Ben seethed, lips curled in a snarl that the others were unused to seeing on his normally mild face.

“That’s not what I meant!” Luther exclaimed.

Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Then what _did_ you mean?”

“I just meant we should all spend more time with him and time together and if that means he starts to feel comfortable enough with us to open up, then that’s a happy side effect! An intended one perhaps, but still just a side-effect.”

Allison hummed thoughtfully. “I agree.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Diego muttered under his breath. Luther shot him a warning look that he ignored.

Allison continued, “It’s about time we stepped up and acted like a family and Klaus needs us right now.”

“We all seemed to get closer to each other while in the past training me, but I think we sort of… left him out,” Vanya said, looking vaguely guilty.

“We forgot him. Again. Just like we did the first time,” Ben said.

Luther leaned forward and met Ben’s eyes. “Then let’s fix it. Let’s do better. Here, now.”

Everyone turned to look at Ben. He knew Klaus best and they would follow his lead.

“Okay,” he said at length. He looked at them. “Operation: Be Nicer to Klaus is a go,” he declared with a soft smile.

They would do better this go ‘round; they had to or they didn’t deserve to call each other a family at all.

“And I call dibs first,” Five declared with a manic grin, teleporting out of the room as Ben called after him in protest.

Despite his dramatic exeunt from the kitchen, Five didn’t actually know how he was going bond with Klaus. They had never had that type of relationship, the hanging out with each other and share all their deepest desires and fears and feelings type.

But, he reflected, that was what they are aiming to change. 

Even while they were in the past Five had been more focused on stopping the apocalypse– which he didn’t regret– and training Vanya– which he also didn’t regret. Those were important things. But he could admit to himself that certain other issues had gotten pushed to the side.

Not that Klaus was an issue, but he was still never the focus of Five’s attention. He existed more in the peripheral of Five’s thoughts, still there but more of an afterthought.

Five walked almost aimlessly around the house, vaguely intending on finding Klaus but not knowing where to start and not committed yet to the idea of hunting him down at that very moment. He still had no idea where to start.

Well, that was a lie. Five _always_ had ideas. They were just usually about mathematics or physics and way above the heads of his family members. 

Five tried to think of what he knew about Klaus, beyond the obvious. He saw ghosts, but that was unlikely to get him anywhere. He liked clubbing, but that was a bad idea for many reasons. He had time traveled, like Five had, but that was hardly relevant anymore.

He stopped short. Klaus _had_ time traveled, hadn’t he? To Vietnam he had said.

Yes, yes maybe this was something. That sort of trauma doesn’t go away and it certainly doesn’t get forgotten in a few short years. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten that their brother was a veteran but maybe it was a fact that Klaus wouldn’t mind bringing up, maybe even one he would appreciate coming to light.

This was _perfect,_ Five thought with a smirk.

Five had his plan and not even God could stand in his way now.

“And just where are you dragging me at this ungodly hour of the morning,” Klaus groused as Five shoved him out of bed and pushed him towards his closet, telling him to get dressed.

“It’s ten o’clock,” Five said, already exacerbated.

“ _Ungodly,_ ” Klaus repeated, almost reverent in his tone. He shrugged off the threadbare shirt he slept in and pulled on a brightly colored tank top that was so sheer it seemed to show off more than it covered, apathetic to his brother watching him.

Pulling on his pair of tight leather pants with the slits on the sides, he turned by to Five. “I ask again, _where_ are we going? I had plans, I’ll have you know.”

Five hummed. “Did you, now?”

“Yes! And I am _offended,_ offended I say at your lack of faith in me. I had plans to lay in bed all day and eat donuts I’ll have you know, maybe even share them with Ben if I was feeling frisky. See? Plans.”

“You’ll have to reschedule,” Five replied, hiding his amusement at his brother’s antics.

“Oh, but I am completely booked the rest of the week Fivey!”

“Don’t call me that,” Five interjected.

Ignoring him, Klaus continued, smudging some eyeliner around his eyes, despite the fact that he still looked like a raccoon from the previous makeup he put on yesterday, “I made so many plans with myself and I simply can’t reschedule again.”

“Are you done yet?”

“Perfection takes time.”

“Then why do you take so long,” Five snarked.

“Rude!”

“Never mind that. You're done come on,” Five said, grabbing Klaus’s wrist.

“Wait, wait! Where are we–”

He was cut off with a pop as they appeared in a grassy area surrounded by large, tall buildings that Klaus didn’t recognize.

“You can’t just teleport people places without their permission,” Klaus complained, shaking his head to rid himself of that weird feeling teleporting always gave him.

Five hummed. “I’ll take that into consideration.” He wouldn’t. They both knew it.

Klaus sniffed, looking around. Lots of grass, lots of people. No obvious reason he could see as to why Five had kidnapped him for a one-on-one adventure. Not that many things required his personal help, but still.

However in the distance there appeared to be a tall, thin pillar of sorts and Klaus squinted at it. Not a building. Some otherworldly obelisk perhaps come to take over their minds?

No, no. That was ridiculous. Then again, there was that time they found out that the Eiffel Tower was a spaceship so, really, perhaps he shouldn’t shelf the idea of alien obelisks so quickly.

Wait… “Is that the Washington Monument?” What the fuck. “ _Are we_ in D.C.?”

Five looked at him sidelong as if he was regretting every choice that led him to this moment. His fingers twitched with the nervous, manic energy that characterized his movements ever since returning from the apocalypse. He always was a little spitfire of energy and with an adult mind, his need to always be moving, thinking, doing only seemed to increase.

Regardless, Five didn’t deign himself to answer.

“C’mon. We’re heading that way.” He nodded towards what appeared to be a lot of nothing and walked, back straight and his head held high, without turning to see if Klaus would follow.

Klaus shrugged, if only for his own benefit, though some of the ghosts were peering at him with more interest than he preferred. 

He ignored their stares and howls, playing the childhood game of I can’t see you then you can’t see me. Ben once told him that children only thought that because they lacked thing or object permanence or something.

Klaus called out to ghosts like a lighthouse and they flocked to him like moths to a flame. Or boats to the lighthouse, to continue the same analogy. But that didn’t mean that sometimes the game didn’t work. Sometimes the ghosts would give up if he ignored them resolutely enough.

Usually not, but it was better than nothing and certainly better than actually _acknowledging_ the specters.

They walked in silence and came to a sudden drop-off in the grass and what looked like a wall of polished black stone leading up to where they were standing. A handful of people were meandering on the stone path below that edged up to the wall. Many were looking at it with great intent while others simply walked. All looked somber.

Many ghosts in war uniform lingered around the spot and Klaus pretended not to see them.

They both stared down for a moment before Five tugged him away. After walking for a moment it appeared that they had been on top of a small hill and that they could view the wall on the stone path if they just walked around a bit.

Never one to let a silence linger, Klaus asked, “So what is this place? Because I gotta tell you, little bro, I could see walls at home. With less effort too”

“I’m older than you,” Five said, scowling. A rote answer at this point. The scowl dropped half a second later and Five looked sidelong at Klaus, an almost hesitant look on his face.

Klaus must be mistaken though because Five didn’t do hesitant. There wasn’t a thing in the world that Five didn’t walk into with full confidence and obstinate insistence that he could handle it, where that be time travel or ordering a black coffee as a thirteen year-old.

Except this apparently, because the expression lingered. What the fuck was going on here? Klaus had the sudden desire to be anywhere but here dealing with whatever this was.

Five inhaled sharped and his next words came out in a rush, pushing things forward as if to make up for his face’s moment of weakness. “It’s the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I thought after, you know, you might like to visit. See if you could find his name.”

Klaus suddenly felt as though he couldn’t breathe, his heart seizing up with emotions he didn’t dare try to name. Happiness? Grief? Pain? Affection?

Some combination of those and others would be most accurate. 

As it were, his eyes were wet as he looked incredulously at Five. 

Suddenly Five looked panicked. “Shit! _Fuck._ Are you okay? Should I not have done this? Was it too soon?”

He put a hand to his face and muttered under his breath. “ _Stupid,_ you should have staked it out first and made sure he would be okay with it. _Fuck._ You were supposed to be making him feel _better._ ”

Well that certainly wouldn’t do. Klaus stepped forward in a rush and grabbed Five’s hands.

_“Thank you.”_

“But I–”

“No. Thank you. This is– this is wonderful.” Klaus honestly couldn’t think of anything more thoughtful that Five could have done for him, and it had to be for _him_. Doing it for any other reason would just be the odder answer at this point. But it was still _weird_. 

His family didn’t do nice things for no reason and they definitely didn’t do nice things for him. For any reason. Ben not withstanding and even then Klaus was half convinced he was only nice to him most of the time because he had no one else to talk to.

There had to be a catch but Klaus was willing to risk going along with it for now. Because, honestly, this was... This was. There were no words for it.

Five gently tugged his hands out of Klaus’s and sniffed, nose upturned haughtily as if he hadn’t been half a moment away from a minor mental breakdown over the thought of hurting his sibling.

“Well, let’s go find your boy then. I looked up earlier where it should be,” he added softly.

Klaus hummed, gazing at the wall of names on the memorial. He could see the engravings from where they stood and the amount of names listed there was daunting. So much death and for no good reason that Klaus could ever figure out.

“You know his name?” That was… unexpected. He hadn’t talked about Dave with the whole family yet, just Diego and Ben, and he wasn’t sure he had ever intended to. One of them must have told Five.

Or he just figured it out like the mini Einstein he was.

“Of course I do,” Five scoffed.

They began making their way towards where Dave’s name was. The walk took longer than Klaus could honestly say he was comfortable with.

“How many names are on this wall?”

“Around 58,000.”

“Wow. That’s… a lot.”

Five grimaced at this. “It is.” And his little brother was one of them. Despite how eager he had been to bring Klaus here he had done his research beforehand. There were 82,000 names, organized by date of casualty. A particularly gruesome method of organization in Five’s opinion. What was wrong with doing it by last name?

Five didn’t feel the need to share the information with Klaus, however. He could find out himself if he wanted to but there was no reason to bring up Dave’s death directly if it could be helped. Just being here would be enough of a reminder.

Eventually they made it to Dave’s section and each began to silently search for the name.

It was fitting, Five thought, that Klaus found it first.

“David J Katz,” he whispered, tracing his fingers on the engraved words.

Five was never the one people went to for anything having to do with emotions and so he never knew what to say in situations like this. He was always more comfortable with a mathematical formula than a crying sibling and the apocalypse didn’t help that trait.

Still, he felt he should say something.

“What was he like?”

Klaus huffed out a tear-filled laugh and looked at Five with a sad smile and just like that the words he’d been holding back came rushing out like a waterfall. “He was… he was amazing. Funny, smart, brave, _hot as hell._ He was the first one I met there, you know? Didn’t even phase him when I popped right in front of him with nothing but a suitcase and a bloody face.”

“Tell me about him,” Five said softly. They stood there for hours as Klaus talked about Dave, about the war, about what he went through. Five suspected it was an edited version because there was no way war wasn’t absolute hell but you wouldn’t know it by the way Klaus spoke. You would think it was paradise.

Maybe it was, for him. He had friends, a lover, people he belonged with and accepted him as he was. It was more than he ever had in the present time. At least before now because Five was never letting his brother be lost and alone again. He didn’t stop the end of the world only to fail now.

Eventually, after his words trailed off, Klaus asked, “Do you think my name is on here?”

It was something Five hadn’t considered. If he had ever been registered with the military, then maybe. “We could check the catalogue if you want?”

Klaus hummed and looked thoughtful. “No,” he said at last. “No, I’m good. I deal with death enough. I don’t need to see a memorial listing mine.”

That was fair, Five thought. He imagined it would be like seeing your own grave while still being alive. A sudden thought occurred to him– Ben was dead. Ben had a grave. Did they ever visit Ben’s grave?

“Did you ever visit Ben’s grave?” he blurted out. _Damn._ He meant to be a bit more sensitive than that.

Klaus stared at Five for several long moments, mouth agape, before breaking into peels of unrestrained laughter. Unable to help it, Five found himself laughing alongside Klaus, determinedly breaking the previously solemn mood and earning the glares of the surrounding patrons.

They kept trying to stop, but in much the same way that you cannot stop thinking about a purple penguin when someone tells you not to, they laughed only redoubled each time they looked at each other after a failed attempt at stopping.

Eventually however, when they both had laughed so long that their mouths and stomachs hurt, Klaus said, “C’mon, little bro, let’s go get some ice cream or some shit before heading back.”

“Still older than you.”

“Yeah, yeah. So he says. Ice cream though?”

“Fine,” Five flatly replied. He had to at least pretend that he didn’t want ice cream. He had appearances to keep. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing Klaus’s hand, preparing to teleport them back home where they knew where the ice cream shops were.

D.C. was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and Five had no intention of figuring out how to navigate the city today.

“But, wait, _did_ you ever visit Ben’s grave?”

“Buy me ice cream and maybe I’ll tell you,” Klaus sing-songed. He wore a shit-eating grin that boasted of conversational victory. He had knowledge Five wanted and that gave him some measure of power over him.

Five was like a dog with a bone when it came to getting information he wanted and Klaus was more than willing to take advantage of that fact.

“Fine,” Five groused and took them back home.


	2. Diego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonding time with Diego.
> 
> Also, thank y'all so much for the support and kind words. It really means a lot to me and and encouraged me to get working on this next chapter.

Klaus really didn’t know what to make of his escapade with Five. It was nice and thoughtful and _kind_ and none of the things that Five usually was. Okay, so _maybe_ he was those things deep down seeing as he spent who knows how long working for a shadowy secret agency to get back to them. But he wasn’t normally one for such blatant displays of his inner gooeyness.

It was nice of him, just out of character. And, above all, it was bizarre.

But Klaus was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth and now was no exception.

No need to overthink things, just take the trip to the Memorial as is with no further commentary. There were _definitely_ no ulterior motives behind it.

Probably.

Possibly.

Hmm, Klaus thought, maybe he should be worried. Five acting nice? Maybe another apocalypse was just around the corner and he was holding out on them.

But no, that’s taking things too far. Five would be screaming at the top of his lungs at them if there was another armageddon to worry about. But still. It was odd. Not that Klaus was complaining but despite his best efforts to push it out of mind as just one of Five’s _things_ he kept thinking about it in the quiet moments as he went about his days.

It had been several days since the trip and he was no closer to unraveling the mystery that was his little baby brother. (And _yes_ , Five might be older when you count years lived, but when you look 13 you don’t get to be called _older_ anything.) But he was closer to unraveling the Gordian Knot that his yarn had turned into.

He didn’t know how it could have gotten so tangled just sitting on his desk, but stranger things had happened. Maybe Ben had been messing with it. Despite his insistence of not wanting Klaus to teach him how to knit he did still look inordinately interested in the process and there had been a time or two Klaus had caught him fiddling with the needles and yarn.

Klaus had just spent the past several minutes working to untangle the skein when he heard a knock on the door.

“Yes?” he drawled, pitching the end of the word up.

A leather-studded man in a horrendous black turtleneck that was just a _smidge_ too tight for the average person not automatically think he was showing off awkwardly shuffled into the room.

“Ah, Diego! My favorite brother! Just in time, come over here and help me untangle this.”

“Uhh…” he trailed off, but then nodded, almost to himself. “Sure.”

Klaus jerked his head up, surprised, and watched as Diego walked over to him and sat across from Klaus on his bed. He wasn’t expecting such an easy acquiescence.

“Really? Didn’t take you for a yarn untangling connoisseur,” he joked.

Diego huffed out a laugh. “I’m not, but there’s a first time for everything.”

“True, but having you untangle this mess seems like taking someone who’s never cooked before and telling him to make like a flambe or whatever the fuck for Alton Brown–

“Who?”

“A cooking god among men, not germane to what I’m saying. Anyways–”

“Ooh! Germane, now that’s a big word. Where’d you pick that one up?”

“Hey! I know things!”

Diego hummed. “Ben taught you, didn’t he?” he said, smirking, as he managed to pull a several inch-long thread out of the mess before them before it got stuck.

“I can learn things outside of Ben, you know!” Klaus exclaimed in mock offense. “I have layers!”

“What, are you quoting Shrek now?”

He was, but Diego didn’t need to know that. He did have layers, after all and Diego didn’t need to see all of them. “Shrek? I don’t know her.”

“Wait, what? Who’s her?”

“Shrek, obviously.”

“Shrek’s not a girl,” Diego said, furrowing his brows.

“That’s what you think, but you’re straight so what would you know?”

“What? What does that have to do with anything?”

“See if you were gay, you’d know. I don’t know her.” Diego was far too easy to rile up sometimes. You’d think with the amount of leather he worse on a daily basis he’d be more up to date with how gay people talked. There had to be at least one twink who looked at him and thought _now there’s a man who could go for days._

Actually, no. Thinking about his brother in any sort of sexual connotation? Ew, gross, no. Hard pass.

But the point remained. Diego dresses like a gay man’s fantasy. You’d really think he’d be more up with the slang.

Diego stared at him for a long moment before sighing and dropping the still-tangled yarn back onto the bed.

“Let’s go do something.”

“Oh?” Klaus asked, about ready to give up on this project anyways. He could just buy more yarn and save himself the headache. “Have anywhere in mind?”

“Uh, yeah actually,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck in an uncharacteristic display of nervousness.

“Yeah,” Klaus prodded when he didn’t go on.

“I thought I could take you to the gun range, teach you how to shoot, you know?” Diego said in a rush, picking halfheartedly at the yarn

“Ah…” Klaus said as his stomach dropped. Guns were not his favorite thing in the world. He saw enough people who died by them to last a lifetime.

They were the gorier ghosts as well, with brain matter dripping onto the floor or arms discolored with infection from where the bullet went in. Druggies and pimps shot when they couldn’t pay. Battered wives who couldn’t escape soon enough. Young soldier boys…

Soldier boys. If he had seen more than his fill of guns before Vietnam, then after it he would have seen enough for a dozen people’s fills. The ghosts of the men who came before them, the children shot by trigger-happy and scared teenagers, his friends being slewn one after another. Dave.

Just… Dave. Four years later he could still smell the acrid stench of war burning his nostrils and taste the coppery tang of blood. Klaus hazarded a quick glance down at his hands just to make sure he was here and not in Vietnam, trying to keep Dave together.

They were shaking slightly, but free of blood. He clenched and unclenched them to make them stop

And then there was Reginald. Being shot hurt. Klaus had never realized it before that moment but being shot fucking hurt. Even though he wasn’t alive for very long to feel it, he didn’t think he would ever forget the sensation of a bullet entering the skull.

Klaus had heard once, perhaps from one of Ben’s books about the French Revolution (why did he like the French revolution so much, anyways?), that when people are beheaded, they don’t die right away. They can last up to ten second before they really die. Not that long in the grand scheme of things.

But, god, it must last an eternity for that person. It was enough time to become aware of the fact that your head was detached from your body, aware of how much pain you were in, aware enough to regret every action you had ever taken that lead to this moment.

Being shot in the head was very similar to that. Klaus was very aware of how much pain he was in and that he was dying for seconds that felt like an eternity until he was once again jerked into the dimension (reality?) that was the afterlife.

It was not a pleasant experience.

Klaus shook his head to clear the morbid thoughts. Diego was still waiting on an answer from him and had begun worrying at his lip at the delay.

“I don’t know, mon frère, guns aren’t really my thing. I’m more of a standoff to the side and kinda sorta keep watch type of person than a machine gun in both hands going in full Rambo style kind of person, you know?” he chuckled nervously, going for nonchalance and missing by a country mile.

Diego nodded fervently. “I know, I know. I just thought you might like to learn how to defend yourself.”

“Excuse you!” he feigned offense, hoping to replace the previous bad memories with a different emotion. “I had the same self-defense lessons as you. I may not literally live at a gym like you, but I can hold my own.”

“No, no! I know. That’s not what I meant!”

“Then what did you mean,” Klaus asked suspiciously.

“I just,” Diego took a deep breath. “It scared us. It scared _me._ ” He reached out and began fiddling with the yarn again, wrapping and unwrapping a loose end around a finger.

Klaus made a questioning hum.

“When we found out that… you know. That Reggie–”

“When he killed me,” Klaus said gently. This topic was a minefield that they had yet to traverse and Klaus wasn’t looking forward to it. He had led his men across many such fields in ‘nam, using the ghosts as guides, but he still didn’t look forward to navigating this particular mess of emotions.

“Yeah. When he killed you,” Diego whispered, still reeling from the reality of what had happened. He coughed, clearing his throat. “It scared me and if you know how to shoot a gun you can defend yourself if… if someone tries to hurt you again. I don’t want you to get hurt anymore, Klaus.” His voice broke on the last word as he looked at Klaus desperately and he looked so damn near to crying that Klaus reached out and took his hands without a second thought.

They both needed the support at the moment. Why was Diego talking about this anyways?

“I’m stronger than you think. I… I let that happen.”

“No!” Diego interjected. “You didn’t. He _did_ that to you. It wasn’t your fault!” Diego squeezed Klaus’s hands tightly in his.

“No, I know that. I know it wasn’t my fault. But that doesn’t change the fact that I let it happen. There were lots of times that I could have fought back, said no, but I didn’t.”

Something in Diego’s eyes darkened at this. “I don’t think you could have.”

Klaus bristled. He wasn’t some helpless waif, no matter what Diego thought. His former feigned offense was quickly turning real. He could handle his own in a fight and he could defend himself if need be. What happened in the past might not be a good example of that, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t true.

But before Klaus could make a retort Diego rushed on. “I’m not saying that you physically couldn’t have fought back! I know that you can fight. But I’m saying–” he took a deep breath, steeling himself. “–I’m saying that we weren’t in an environment growing up where we felt that we could defend ourselves and the end of the world situation just further backed you into a corner, I think, where you felt that you couldn’t fight back, for our sakes.”

And, oh. Oh. This is not where Klaus thought this conversation was heading.

“Still, I could have done something, and I chose not to. That’s not on you or anyone else.”

Diego looked at Klaus earnestly, as if begging him to understand what he was trying to say. “Reginald was a twisted motherfucker who manipulated everyone and that’s not on you.”

The sudden profanity was enough to make Klaus bark out a genuine laugh, which made Diego smile in turn before becoming solemn once more.

“He hurt you Klaus.”

“He did.”

“But it wasn’t just physical. He hurt you mentally.” Klaus swallowed and looked away. He didn’t want to be having this conversation at that very moment. The wounds were still too fresh.

Diego was right of course, but that didn’t make it any more palatable.

“You were backed into a corner where you couldn’t fight back. I don’t want you to ever be in that situation again. I want you to have more tools in your arsenal to fight back in case someone tries to hurt you again.”

“Thus,, the gun range.”

Diego nodded. “Thus, the gun range.”

“Dee, I appreciate the thought, I really do, and it means a lot to me that you would think to do that for me, but I really can’t.”

“Of course, you can,” Diego said earnestly. “It looks harder than it really is–”

“I’ve shot a gun before,” Klaus interrupted before Diego could get going with a slight indulgent smile.

That stopped Diego short for a moment. “You do?” His face was the picture of pure befuddlement. When had Klaus learned how to shoot a gun?

“I was in Vietnam, remember?”

Diego’s look of befuddlement quickly turned to one of guilt as he leaned back, pressing one hand into the bed to support him as he brought the other to his face. “ _Fuck._ I am so sorry. I didn’t remember– I didn’t think–”

“It’s okay, Diego.”

“It really isn’t! I should have remembered.”

“Maybe. But it isn’t just that.” He hesitated and Diego waited as he gathered his thoughts. “I see ghosts,” he started. “I see ghosts and they look like how they died.”

“But Ben…?”

“Ben was the exception to the rule. Most of the ghosts I see are bloody, disfigured, horrifying-looking things.”

“Jesus. I didn’t realize.”

Klaus plowed on. They could talk about everyone’s m misconceptions about his powers later. “And a lot of them died by gunshot. And I know a lot of other people on the street who were shot and killed. And I… and I. And Reggie shot me too.”

Diego wore a look of pure horror and Klaus uncomfortably continued unworking the knots in his yarn in an attempt to avoid looking directly at him. It was almost completely untangled now.

“I had no idea. I am so sorry, Klaus.”

Klaus shuddered, physically trying to shake off the sour feelings taking up space in his stomach. “No big deal, hermano. Just a thing.”

“No, it is a big deal. That must have been horrible.” He couldn’t stand Klaus trying to make light of this. It made his stomach turn at the thought.

Klaus shrugged. He wasn’t sure how much more of this conversation he could take.

“If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here,” Diego said after it was clear Klaus wasn’t up for any more of this heart-to-heart.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” And he meant it, too, which was surprising enough to Klaus in its own right.

What was even more surprising, however, was when Klaus pulled the next thread the mess of yarn that was his skein fully unraveled, leaving nothing but a single, unknotted piece of thread in its place and both of them grinned at each other in triumph.

“Fuck, yes!” Klaus cried out, effectively breaking the formerly somber mood.

“Well, you know what this means, don’t you?” Diego said playfully.

“Oh? Do enlighten me.”

“A celebration!”

“Ooh, that does sound nice. As long as you’re buying.” Klaus actually did have money at the moment, with his inheritance from Reginald’s death not yet spent, but that didn’t mean that they needed to break tradition.

“Waffles?”

They shared another, gentler smile. The load on Klaus’s back felt lighter after the talk. He wasn’t expecting that. In fact, he hadn’t expected any of this. Diego wasn’t normally one for emotions, but he was surprisingly good when it came to discussing important things like this and Klaus appreciated the reminder that he cared.

“You know me so well, brother dear,” he said as he got off of the bed and began hunting down a reasonably clean jacket to wear out.

They ended up passing Ben as they were leaving and brought him with them, the Even Number Squad back at it again on a quest for the best waffles in town.

(They found a mediocre place some blocks away but they didn’t really notice the quality of the food as they reveled in the joy of spending unstressed, quality time together like they hadn’t in literal decades.)


	3. Vanya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meditation, heart-to-hearts, and violins oh my!

Life had been surprisingly good lately, and even aside the spontaneous bonding sessions with Five and Diego the rest of his family had also been noticeably nicer to him, going so far as to draw him into conversations they would normally be happy to let him sit out and and actually listening to him when he participates. Klaus was near ready to claim that there was some sort of conspiracy going on, but unwilling to stop enjoying the extra positive attention.

Regardless, he had had a relatively peaceful night of sleep, the ghosts content to let him rest without interruption for most of the night and the sun was high enough in the sky that even he had to admit that it was time to get up for the day.

Sliding on a worn pair of sweatpants he had swiped from a one night stand ages back and an old but comfortable shirt, he began making his way downstairs. Everyone else's rooms seemed bereft of life as he passed by them and Klaus figured that they all must be out doing whatever it was they did during the day.

Klaus thought Diego might still have a job at the gym, but couldn’t even begin to imagine how the others occupied their days. They were still jobless, what with Allison between shoots and Vanya taking a break from teaching her classes, though she was still part of the orchestra. Did that count as a job? 

Do people in orchestra get paid or is it just for fun? No, no. They must get paid or they wouldn’t bother. No one likes music that much to practice hours daily if they weren’t getting some kind of compensation for it.

Right?

He supposed that it didn’t really matter in the end. It was just a passing thought, but then again, he mused, as he passed by an empty room and happened to hear movement inside, he could always just ask Vanya. She would know and she still always got that painful look of pleasant surprise when someone asked her anything about herself.

She didn’t have practice on Wednesday’s so there was a good chance he was going to find her putzing around the house. Sure enough, he peeked his head in the room and saw Vanya curled up into the corner of a couch. The room was one of the few spare ones decorated comfortably with several bookshelves lining the wall, a still-functioning fireplace tucked neatly between them, and a worn gray couch sitting catty corner to a loveseat.

Klaus made sure to knock his shoulder on the doorframe as he waltzed into the room, so as not to startle Vanya, before strutting over to the unoccupied chair and draping himself across it.

Vanya looked up from the book she was reading with a quiet, confused smile. “What are you doing?” She asked, letting the book fold over her hand as she marked her spot.

Klaus hummed. “You know me, just blowing where the wind takes me.”

“And the wind took you here?”

“Where else” Klaus exclaimed with a bright grin, “but into the arms of my dear dear sister?”

Vanya looked startled for a moment, still sometimes surprised and unused to familial attention. “Oh! Well… that’s nice?”

He nodded solemnly before gesturing at her book. It didn’t look like one that Reginald would have had in the house, so it must be one Vanya had gotten herself. “What’re you reading?”

“Um, it's called _A Dream of Winter.”_ She flipped the book so that Klaus could see the cover. There was a picture of a young girl, her back facing the reader, as she stood alone in what looked to be an abandoned town in the desert. Her clothes were ragged and her shoulders looked weary. 

Something about the picture made Klaus’s stomach turn a little bit. That little girl shouldn’t be all alone in the middle of nowhere like that, surrounded by all that nothing.

Some unpleasant expression must have crossed his face in that instance because Vanya put the book back down on her lap and frowned slightly. “Are you alright?”

Klaus quickly looked up and nodded, shoving the thoughts down. “What’s it about? It looks interesting.”

She looked down at it again, thinking, before speaking. “It’s about this girl named Sophie. It’s set in future America where there was some sort of war that apparently wiped everyone out. She was away at camp when everything happened and so she’s trying to find her family. And she’s trying to survive, but everything is abandoned and dangerous now.”

An apocalypse story, then. A bit different from their own but it was the same general theme. “A little on the nose, don’t you think?” 

Vanya shrugged. “I find that it helps me process it all, you know? Seeing a similar story but from someone else’s point of view. It’s cathartic.”

Tilting his head forward, Klaus Let his curls flop over his forehead. It made sense. Reading about your own experience but not exactly your experiences could help you process things without having to dig too deep into your own emotions. Klaus had lost track over the number of fictional ghost stories that he had helped Ben read. He had never gotten a solid answer from him as to why he wanted to read them but he could guess well enough.

Nevertheless, Klaus didn’t think that reading a book like that about the apocalypse, or war, or drug addiction, or someone dying and then coming back, or any of his other various neuroses would do anything but trigger him into a panic attack or downward spiral back into old temptations and he told Vanya as much.

She tilted her head and looked at him thoughtfully with an expression she normally only ever gave her new sheet music, the hard pieces that she had to work through slowly and take her time to process.

“How about meditation?”

“Mediation?” Where did that come from?

He might be a séance and sometimes play up the whole mystical powers from beyond thing, but that didn’t mean he believed in all that _your body is magic and you can cure yourself just by sitting quietly in a room_ crap. First of all, the ghosts would never let him focus long enough to do that and secondly, he didn’t take unwanted medical advice from random old white ladies in stores thank you very much.

But Vanya was smart, not in a loud way like Five, but in a way that showed up when she spoke. Understated surety that she knows what she’s talking about and a growing mindset that she deserved to be listened to attentively shined through in her and Klaus trusted her well enough to hear her out, despite his sudden reservations.

“Well,” she began, “it’s all about centering yourself, you know?”

Klaus shook his head. He didn’t.

“It’s about being present in the moment and letting yourself just be, let your thoughts flow in and accept them as they are before letting them go, not letting yourself get stuck on one idea. I’ve found it helpful in the past for processing certain things.”

“I’m not sure I’m the type of person who can sit still long enough for that. And the ghosts don’t really let me do _quiet.”_

Vanya hummed. “How about walking meditation then? You can do it outside and it lets you move around, but it’s still meditation.”

How can you walk and meditate? Didn’t you have to sit criss cross in a room and think about chakras or something? The doubt must show on his face because she continues, “Did you know that Allison and I learned meditation while we were in the past?”

He hadn’t known that. To be honest, he didn’t know most of the finer aspects of Vanya’s training beyond the basic ‘let’s help her control her powers so she doesn’t end life as we know it’ part of it. He thought he should probably feel slightly guilty about it, but, to be fair, he was caught up with his own issues at the time.

“It helped me control my focus and ignore the distractions around me. And it helped me mentally too. I was calmer and that carried over into training and in my interactions with others.”

He hummed noncommittally. This was not something he wanted to consider at the moment. Dealing with her powers was one thing, dealing with _his_ powers was another, but dealing with the emotional toll of the past several years was another thing all together.

“Is it okay if I think about it?” Meditation still seemed like a stretch to him and too many patronizing people at rehab had forced it down his throat for him to be entirely open to the idea, but he was willing to at least consider it if Vanya was vouching for it.

“Of course.” After a beat of silence, she gently nudged his knee with her hand. “How’s your training been going?”

Klaus sighed dramatically and flung his head back on the chair. “Excellent!” he cried out.

Vanya gasped, echoing Klaus’s fair. “Is that sarcasm I detect?” she said mock-affronted.

“I? Sarcastic? I don’t know the meaning of the word. I have never _not_ been serious. Just ask my good friend Charles Darwin, my best ghost friend with whom I discuss things like nuclear physics and theoretical space stuff all the time!” Klaus spoke with an almost distressingly bad British accent that had Vanya cackling in her seat, effectively breaking the previously serious mood.

“What? Why are you laughing! I’ll have you know that Charlie says that he thought you were a fine upstanding young lady before this unconscionable breach in decorum! I do say, settle down.”

“Oh did he now?” Vanya choked out, tears of laughter welling up in her eyes. It had been a long time since they had laughed together. “Well _do_ forgive me, good sir,” she said, joining him in a British accent.

Klaus harrumphed and dropped the accent. “Well, I _might_ let dear Charles know about your apology. He left after that _horrid_ display of wanton joy. Laughter is expressly forbidden by old men in this household, or didn’t you know?”

They both made eye contact for a brief moment before breaking off into peals of laughter. 

A comfortable silence descended between them as Vanya picked up a bookmark from where it had been sitting on the end table and set her book aside. She brought her knees to chest and curled up against the arm of the couch, facing where Klaus was seated. “But, seriously, how has it been going?”

Klaus sighed. “It’s been going not great. I’ve been practicing summoning Dave, but I haven’t been able to do it yet and I’m hardly getting any better at banishing or quieting the ghosts, either.”

She tilted her head and him and gave him a sympathetic expression. “It can feel very slow going at times, especially when you can’t see the progress.”

“ _Exactly._ Like Ben keeps telling me that it takes time and that eventually the hard work will pay off, but I’m beginning to think that this is just how it is, you know? I’ve peaked.”

“You’ve only just started, though,” Vanya pointed out.

Klaus tilted his head in confusion. “No? I started training after Dad figured out what my powers were, remember? I was like five or six or something.” 

“No, no. I know that. I just…” she trailed off for a moment, glancing at the ceiling for a second before turning back to him. “This is just the first time you’ve really been working on it, right?”

Klaus reared back. He had really thought Vanya of all people would recognize just how much he had been trying to control his powers. It wasn’t his fault that it wasn’t working. 

“Are you implying I haven’t tried to control my powers before? Because let me tell you, _I tried._ Repeatedly. And then failed, miserably.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t,” she soothed, picking at a string on her pants. “But, and correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the first time you’ve tried as an adult? And sober? With an actual goal in mind and away from Reginald’s oversight… right?”

Klaus relaxed again, letting his shoulders slump against the arm of the chair. Of course Vanya knew him better than that by now and he felt slight shame and thinking otherwise, no matter how brief the moment was. He knew her better than that too. 

And, furthermore, she was right, of course. She normally was. “Yeah, but it still sucks.”

“Believe me, I know,” she said pointedly.

“Ah, I didn’t mean to implyー”

“I know you didn’t,” she interrupted. “It can still be very frustrating not seeing any progress, though, despite knowing that you must be making it.” She stopped picking at the string suddenly and looked up at Klaus, eyes bright.

“Did I ever tell you about learning how to play the violin?”

“No?”

“Well, when I first started, I was very bad.”

“Blasphemy!” He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t think that her playing was beautiful.

“Shush, I was. I practiced all the time but I could only see my mistakes. I was objectively better than I was when I started but I still was messing so many things up. My hands would shift to the wrong positions, I kept accidentally playing D natural when I was supposed to play D sharp for instance, and I would grip the neck too hard. Et cetera. Et cetera”

“But Mom noticed and she told me about this theory of competency thing? It’s like the stages of how you get better when you learn a new skill.” Klaus nodded, indicating for her to continue. 

“First is unconscious competence. You aren’t aware of what you’re doing wrong or don’t understand it. But then is conscious competence. You are aware of what you're doing wrong whereas you weren’t before.”

“That’s why it seems like you’re getting worse or making no progress because _before_ you didn’t see the mistakes or understand what you should or could be doing. But because you’re now conscious of the mistakes you can fix them.”

Klaus started at her, enraptured. That did sound a lot like what was happening. “So what you’re saying is it only feels like I’m not getting any better at summoning Dave or banishing ghosts because I’m aware that I can do it now?”

“Exactly. Before you know you could do those things, I’m sure you didn’t worry about it, right?”

“I suppose.”

Vanya nodded. “That’s because you didn’t know you could and now that you know you can, you can get better! Because the next steps are conscious competence, where you can do the thingー summoning Dave or not messing up the fingering patterns for instanceー but it requires effort.”

“And lots of practice, I’m guessing?” Klaus asked with a sheepish smile. Vanya had probably spent more hours sawing away on her violin that first month she got it than Klaus had put into trying to develop his powers in the past decade. Though, to be fair, it had been a very bad couple years. But he had no excuse for the past month or so. Things had been calm and he had the time, even if he lacked the resolve.

Vanya nodded. “Lots and lots of practice. But then you get to conscious competence and that’s the fun part.” she said, grinning. “You’re so good at whatever it is that you don’t even have to try anymore.”

Klaus gave her the side eye.He called bull shit on that one. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t even have to try at the violin anymore.”

She huffed a laugh. “Well, no, I can’t say that. But I don’t have to think so hard about it anymore. And while controlling my powers still takes a lot of focus and work, I’m getting better at that too.”

“I really am glad to hear that Vanya.”

“Me too.”

“I guess I should go practice, then, huh?” He didn’t cherish the thought of more seemingly fruitless work and the inevitable disappointment when he failed yet again to see Dave, but Vanya was right.

She hummed thoughtfully. “You could do that,” she said, trailing off in a leading manner.

“I could,” Klaus agreed.

“Or...”

“Or?”

“I could teach you the basics of how to play the violin?” Her voice was hesitant, but that didn’t register with Klaus as he sat there for a moment in shock.

The violin was always so quintessentially _Vanya._ It was hers and no one dared step into that space. Listening was acceptable, appreciated even, but any attempts to interrupt or interfere were met with deep unhappiness and everyone assumed that touching the instrument in an attempt to play it would be the same.

Klaus had no particular musical talent and, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t fully understand what a note or pitch even were, but he was dumbfounded by the offer. The trust Vanya was placing in him and her willingness to share something so integral to her and her life.

It was sobering, for lack of a better word.

“Klaus?” Vanya asked with a hint of nerves. He had let the silence go on too long again, lost in his own thoughts.

His eyes locked hers and he nodded. “I would be honored.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed with a bright grin, as if there was ever any possibility that he would say no. 

He returned her dazzling smile. How had he, before all of this started, never realized how much his little sister’s happiness could light up a room. 

And he was the cause of it. The thought pierced his heart like a dagger and he was overcome with how much he cared for her and this ramshackle family. They really were getting better, despite everything.

He didn’t tell her that, however, but he thought she knew all the same judging by that knowing glint in her eyes. 

“Let me go get my violin, then,” she said as she got up and began walking towards the door to retrieve the violin that was sitting in her room.

“Yes, you'd better, because I will not be leaving this room until I could beat Beethoven in a match!”

She stopped in the doorway and turned back to him, still grinning. “Let’s start with _Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star_ first, yeah?”

“If you insist, moya sestra.”

“I do!” she called back and he could hear the pure happiness in her voice as she ran to get her instrument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts:
> 
> 1\. I took meditation last semester and my professor had us do walking mediation all the time- I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I found the other forms of meditation we did helpful  
> 2\. I play the violin, like Vanya!  
> 3\. Moya sestra is Russian for "my sister"  
> 4\. The book mentioned isn’t real, so intrestested persons need not look it up
> 
> I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter, but I hope y'all enjoyed it!


	4. Luther

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus and Luther get down and dirty.... no, not like that.

Taking violin lessons from Vanya had been wonderful and it brought endless smiles to Klaus’s face to see his sister in her element, lighting up as she explained notes and what they meant and where to put his fingers on the strings to match the gibberish that was written on the page.

It was slow going and Kaus didn’t understand a lot of what Vanya was trying to tell him, but he enjoyed the activity nonetheless and could muddle his way through a few simple children’s songs. Vanya had even found a violin that she was renting for him to practice on! Klaus swore up and down to anyone who asked (which was honestly limited to Vanya and Ben) that he didn’t tear up when she gave it to him, but for some reason they didn’t seem to believe him. Traitors.

But, despite the new hobby, Klaus still found himself with more free time than he knew what to do with. Never before had he had such endless swaths of time with nothing pressing to occupy it.

Growing up there was always training. Then there was when he moved out and the blissful ecstasy or nothingness of being high, depending on his poison of the evening, followed by a single-minded pursuit of his next high that left little time for thinking or sitting around. It was an endless cycle of stop-and-go, jolting from sobriety to being high like a car stuck in traffic. Stop. Go. Stop go. An endless cycle that didn’t let things just cruise along gently. Then was their trip to the past and the less said about that the better.

But now there was no stop and go of inebriation. It was all just the ceaseless march of a car on the highway, slowing down for nothing and if you didn’t keep up then you would crash.

All of this to say, Klaus had too much free time and not enough hobbies to fill it. Music helped, but it couldn’t fill all the hours of the day.

And so, a few days after his chat with Vanya, Klaus found himself outside with a trowel and some prettily blooming plants he had picked up at a local gardening store and set himself to work outside.

***

The past few weeks had been surprisingly good, Luther thought, as he was getting ready for the day. Processing everything that had happened was taking time, but he and Allison had been able to spend more uninterrupted time together recently than they had ever been able to before. It was nice.

They talked about everything under the sun, from their childhood and Luther’s slowly dawning realizations that what they all– what he– went through was more than a little messed up. That children shouldn’t be pitted against one another, shouldn’t be trained and treated like soldiers, that they were never allowed to be people, that what father did to his body was wrong, even if it was to save his life, and that, above all, what father did to Klaus was _wrongwrongwrong_ and that it was nobody’s fault but Reglinald’s own.

Luther had understood conceptually, of course, that what father did to Klaus was despicable in a way that transcended words, but there always remained the niggling thought of why didn’t he say anything and that, if he had, all of it could have been prevented.

He knew better now though, thanks to Allison, and was trying to actively keep that in mind when the seed of doubt came wriggling back into mind. It wasn’t a fair thought and Klaus had gone through all of that to protect them and, regardless of Luther’s thoughts on the matter, it had happened and they were going to pay more attention now. Because that’s where they failed last time. Loud, annoying Klaus became quiet and compliant and they were all too caught up in the serendipity of it to notice the dark truth lurking underneath the surface. At least Luther was. He didn’t particularly want to ask the others why _they didn’t notice, lest the answer be something noble or a better even just answer than _I was enjoying the peace and quiet.__

__

__

He hadn’t spent much time with Klaus the past few weeks since their return to the present day, despite his resolution to do so. Instead he had been watching from the sidelines, internally cheering when he saw Klaus starting to spend more time with the others, even when he himself wasn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t intend to or want to. It was just… they had never been particularly close. They didn’t like each other most of the time and Luther wasn’t sure how to take the first step to change that without coming across the wrong way, as he usually does when it comes to his siblings, sans Allison. Though even she sometimes got fed up with his bull-in-a-china-shop method of bumbling through delicate conversations and situations.

He used a bludgeon where a ball peen hammer would have worked just as well, as Allison had rather bluntly put it. 

She also told him that it didn’t matter if his first step was indelicate or not, only that he made it soon. She was right, of course she was, though he _really_ didn’t want to mess it up. It was just a matter of taking the step.

Luther sighed. His internal ramblings were getting him nowhere.

But, he thought as he looked out the window, it seemed to be a lovely day outside. Maybe sitting in the fresh air would grant him some inspiration, or at least peace of mind about the situation. That was a lot to ask out of even the most charitable sunny day, though.

Having made his mind up, Luther found himself walking towards the back courtyard, where he had once seen father sitting on a bench under one of the trees. It was also where Ben’s statue had formerly been in the other timeline.

He didn’t expect there to be anyone else outside when he arrived, but when he stepped outside he saw a slim figure kneeling in front of one of the flower beds with several empty pots scattered about him and several more filled with purple, red, and pink blooms, sitting nearby, waiting to be planted.

Luther took a second to adjust to the relative warmth of the outside and blink the sun out of his eyes, making sure that there was, in fact, someone gardening outside. He didn’t think he had ever seen someone work the flower beds. _Someone must_ have because they never seemed to be overgrown. Maybe Pogo did it? Or did they hire someone?

Regardless, the figure wasn’t one of the girls, it was too tall to be Five, too thin to be Diego, and wearing too garish a shade of neon green to be Ben. So that left… Klaus?

Klaus gardened?

Interesting. Luther took a second to consider his options. He could sit outside like he was planning on doing and pretend he didn’t see Klaus. Not likely to work- Klaus would say something and then he would be forced to answer why Luther ignored him in the first place. He could go up to Klaus and say something before going elsewhere. But what would he say? Or he could go back inside and pretend he never was there. This had the added benefit of avoiding an awkward and stilted conversation.

He knew which option he wanted to pick, but he also knew which one he should. The others can say what they want about his skill at being Number One, but Luther did try and be a good brother and that’s why he took a deep breath, steeled his nerves for whatever nonsense and argument was probably about to ensue, and made his way over to where Klaus was kneeling.

Klaus must have heard his footsteps because he turned around when Luther was a few feet away from him and cocked his head. “Luther? What are you doing out here?”

Luther cleared his throat and looked off to the side, not meeting Klaus’s intense gaze. Even as a child he had eyes that seemed to bore through you. Eyes that said _I see more than you could imagine and it_ isn’t _good._ He could see that Klaus had already flowers in a little over half of this garden plot, their five-petaled heads peering up at the sun.

“Just enjoying the sunshine. You?” He was going for non-confrontational and he was pretty sure he hit his mark this time. He was working on asking questions in a way that didn’t sound like he was in an interrogation or accusing the person he was talking to of wrongdoing.

Even if they normally had done something. He shoved thoughts of whatever Diego was hiding out of mind.

Klaus hummed, sticking his trowel in the dirt and scooping out the beginnings of a hole. “About the same, I suppose. It’s a good day to be outside.” He scooped another trowel-full of dirt out of the hole.

Luther watched him and shifted slightly on his feet. Klaus was normally good at filling the silence but it didn’t appear like more words were coming. Should he say something? Should he leave? Would that be rude? Should–

He cut his thoughts off with an internal shake of the head. This was his _brother;_ he shouldn’t be nervous to talk to him. This was getting ridiculous. Past be damned, he was going to stand here and have a nice conversation with his brother. When did he become so nervous around other people?

But that still left him scrambling to come up with something to say.

Luther nudged at a piece of mulch that had escaped its confines with the toe of his shoe. When had Klaus started gardening anyways? Ah, there was a topic to talk about!

“When did you start gardening?”

Klaus jumped at the words and turned to Luther with a sheepish smile. “Honestly forgot you were there, big guy. I was a bit lost in thought.” He took one of the blue flowers and stuck a fork in the bottom of its roots, where they were clumped together after coming out of the pot. What was he doing? “When did I start, you said?” He hummed. “Not too long ago. Decided I needed a new hobby, and well, it’s springtime so why not? New beginnings and new life and all that.”

He was wiggling the plastic fork back and forth in the roots system and Luther could see the soil beginning to loosen. Luther hummed. “Why are you doing that?”

“Gardening? Didn’t I just say?” He gave Luther a side eye that questioned his intelligence.

“No, no,” he rushed to correct. “I _meant_ why are you stabbing that plant with a fork?”

Klaus let out a startled half laugh and almost dropped said fork in the process. Jesus, Luther couldn’t the last time he had made Klaus laugh. He wasn’t sure he ever had. “I’m not _stabbing it Luther, chrissakes.”_ The words were harsh but he was smiling. “I’m _teasing_ it. Getting the roots all nice and loose so they grow better.”

“Oh? I didn’t know you had to do that. I thought you just…” he trailed off and mimed taking a plant out of a pot and shoving it into the ground. “...you know?”

The smile persisted and Luther felt the corners of his own lips twitch up a bit. This was a little silly, wasn’t it? Klaus gestured at the ground beside him. “Sit, sit. Let Auntie Klaus teach you all about the plants. Because you absolutely _do not_ just shove it in the ground without even a howdy-do.”

The ground wasn’t Luther’s favorite place to sit. Dirt wasn’t his favorite– too many memories of punishments for having mud and food-stained uniforms soiled the experience. But this was a new era of new actions, so Luther kneeled down next to Klaus.

“Tell me about plants.”

“Oh!” Klaus’s face flashed something like surprise for such a brief moment Luther felt that he might have imagined it. “Well, these are a type of anemone plant. They come in lots of different colors, but I just got a few of them.”

“They look nice.” And they did. They reminded Luther a lot of Klaus, actually. Very vibrant, enough to draw attention, but pretty in a subtler way than a lot of flowers. They looked delicate as well, but Klaus rushed to reassure him that they were fairly hardy and could weather through well enough on their own without too much oversight.

The conversation continued in this manner for several minutes, Klaus explaining all about soil pH and minerals in the soil and other things Luther knew nothing about and never would have imagined Klaus being an expert in. Apparently Klaus had done a lot of research recently and was now reaping the benefits of the Academy’s fully stocked library. According to Klaus there was a whole horticulture section neither of them had ever known about.

“It’s just nice, you know?” Klaus continued. He had almost finished planting the batch of flowers with Luther providing limited assistance under Klaus’s close and untrusting supervision. 

Luther handed him back a plant whose roots had been carefully teased. “What do you mean?” 

“Planting things. Making life. It’s like breathing in a breath of fresh air.”

“Like, from being outside or….?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. Not really.”

Luther snorted, scooping some of the mulch around one of the pink plants. “Well, which is it?”

Klaus tossed the rag he was holding at him. “Hush you. No, I mean,” he paused, looking distinctly uncomfortable for a brief moment. “Creating life.” He paused again. His eyebrows were scrunched up in thought and Luther let the silence continue, hoping Klaus would find the words he was looking for. 

His patience was rewarded almost a full minute later when Klaus continued, “I’m surrounded by death all the time, you know.”

Luther inclined his head in agreement. “The ghosts.”

Klaus nodded once, curt. “The ghosts. I… I know you all think that I summon them and that’s the only I see them. But that’s not really accurate. I see them all the time.”

All the time? That. That couldn’t be right.

As if reading his thoughts Klaus said, “Yeah, I know. Hard to believe,” he laughed. But it was dropped quickly as his tone became more somber. “They’re always there. In the background sometimes, easy to ignore. But a lot of times they’re so close to and there are so many of them I feel claustrophobic. And they’re so loud all the time. I can’t ever get a moment’s peace.”

Then, all of a sudden, Klaus cleared his throat and began picking up some of the loose tools scattered around them.

“Anyways! Crazy right? Just listen to me ramble. Want to go see what Diego’s up to? I bet he’s doing something really nerdy like studying to retake that police exam.”

Diego was retaking the police exam? The comment flashed by him quickly as Luther shoved down the initial urge to disbelieve Klaus, to think that he was making things up for attention or pretending things were worse than they were because he was high. That wasn’t fair to either of them and, even if he wouldn’t admit it, what Klaus was saying made a lot of things about Klaus make a lot more sense. 

His jerky way of walking and moving? Walking around ghosts. His sudden, random flinches? A ghost screaming at him. Listening to music too loud? Drown out the endless noise. Drugs? Well, enough said. Being bombarded by constantly screaming ghosts sounded like a distinctly unpleasant experience, to say the least.

“I’m sorry,” Luther said. “That sounds awful.”

Klaus paused in what he was doing and met Luther’s eyes. His gaze was still so intense and Luther felt as if he understood why a little bit more now. He had seen things Luther could never imagine. People headless and yet somehow still able to scream, children with limbs missing, and countless dead soldiers with gun wounds and bits blown off. Luther wasn’t squeamish by any means but even that would test his limit, seeing it day after day.

“Yeah. It is.”

“But this?” He gestured at the budding life surrounding them. “This helps?”

Klaus nodded. “It really, really does.”

Luther nodded back. “Then I’m glad you’re able to do it. I’m happy that it makes you happy.”

“Aw, you fucking sap,” Klaus goaded before turning away quickly and pawing at his face, smearing dirt along the bridge of his nose. He sniffled once, quietly. “My nose was itching. Shut up.”

If that’s what he wanted to claim then Luther would go along with it. “Of course.” 

“Now help me clean all this shit up.”

Luther groaned. “Why should I? It’s your mess?” he teased, only half serious.

Klaus gasped and threw a hand against his chest. “You would just _leave me._ Leave me alone out here, where anything could happen? Toiling away in the blistering summer heat, sweating my life blood away cleaning? The cruelty! The injustice! Whatever would your mother say?”

Ridiculous man, Luther thought fondly. It wasn’t even summer yet. “Mom would say to stop complaining and to clean up your mess.”

Klaus scowled at him. “Fine. But you’re helping. No arguments. You helped me make this mess.”

“Ugh, fine,” he said, standing up.

They cleaned together in comfortable silence, gathering the now-barren pots, sweeping mulch and sol back where it belonged, and collecting the tools together. It wasn’t a mission like the old days, where they worked as one towards a collective goal, but, Luther thought, it was something better. He and Klaus were completing their own mission, their own goals and tasks, but this time they were doing it together by choice. 

The thought felt sweeter than honeydew and made Luther’s heart sing. The words resonated in his mind.

_Together, family, choice._

For the first time, Luther thought that maybe their relationship could be salvaged yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what yall thought! Any predictions or ideas for Allison/Ben?
> 
> Also, I just realized than none of the italics for this work copied over so now I have to go back and add them in :(


	5. Allison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! Sorry for the wait- there was the whole plague and life got away from me. But I am back now and rest assured I will finish this fic because I think about it all the time and feel bad for not working on it! In other news I graduated college, moved, and got a big girl job now.

The Hargreeves house never smelt like much. Klaus would maybe say it had the scent of slightly musty books and dust if pressed, but he honestly never noticed if it did. 

Except when Mom cooked.

When Mom cooked, the aroma could be detected from all corners of the house. Pancakes, freshly made bread, herbs and spices, and baked chicken. It was delightful to smell and the taste matched.

What Klaus smelled now was nothing like that. It smelled not only like something was burning, but like it was burning with a single-minded intent to make sure you knew how much it hated you and wanted to destroy your olfactory nerves and desire to ever smell again.

And that could only mean one thing: Allison was cooking. Klaus smiled at the thought. Of all the skills they were taught growing up, culinary skills wasn’t one of them. Table manners and fine dining etiquette? Of course. But actual cooking? Not so much. You would think they would have learned what with how easy it would be to slip poison in cooking, but Reginald must have just wanted to focus more on garrotes than the sublter methods of murder.

It was almost surprising given how often he poisoned Klaus.

Wow! Depressing thoughts just coming out of nowhere today, hmm? Klaus must be more stove up inside than he thought.

Well! There’s no better way to get your mind off things than to go harass your sibling who is hopefully not burning the house down with her horrid cooking, because Klaus would stake money on the fact that it was Allison in the kitchen currently.

Diego and Vanya were functional adults who didn’t burn things and the rest of the boys just never cooked. Five was just as likely to eat a dead cockroach he found as an actual meal (the family was reminded very harshly sometimes just how much living in isolation during the apocalypse for decades could thoroughly mess up someone’s sense of normality), Ben forgot to eat due to the whole formerly dead thing so more likely than not he just scavenged with Klaus, and Luther… Well who knows what Luther gets up to? He probably eats leftovers and whatever Mom cooks, which is primarily what Klaus does. That and beg Diego to take him out to eat.

Allison though? Allison and her fancy rich self never seemed to get a hang of the cooking thing. Even Klaus could whip up some scrambled eggs or make a passable chicken dish if need be. Not that he ever had a kitchen before now to practice his skills, but he still _knew._

Perhaps he would lend his assistance to her, he thought as he made his way to the kitchen and stood. Or maybe just annoy her with his presence. He’d decide when he got there.

The smell of burnt _something_ only got stronger the closer Klaus walked and when he arrived he had to take in a moment to fully take in the scene before him. Something was indeed burning on the stove and it was baking a huge black ploom of smoke that covered almost the entirety of the ceiling, though the vent hood appeared to be on. The counters were littered with used mixing bowls, filthy pots, food leftovers, and flour smeared everywhere. In the middle of it all was Allison, frantically trying to wave away the smoke with a dish rag that didn’t appear up for the job.

Klaus whistled and Allison turned sharply towards him with a look of panic on her face. He could see that some of the flour had made its way into her hair as well.

“Well what operation do you have going on in here?” he drawled with a crooked grin on his face.

Allison huffed and continued trying to wave away the thick smoke. “Just help!”

Looking at the mess of a room, Klaus wasn’t sure how much help he would be here. He stepped out of the doorway into the disaster zone that once was their kitchen and grabbed another dish towel sitting on the counter. It was damp, but serviceable for waving around like a lunatic.

“Why isn’t the smoke going away?” Allison gritted out, voice strained with stress.

Klaus wasn’t sure. By all accounts it should at least be dying down but the smoke just kept getting thicker. At least it wasn’t an actual fire.

...yet.

He put a hand to his mouth and coughed as he looked around the kitchen again. It was getting a bit difficult to breathe, if he was being perfectly honest. He didn’t see any reason why the smoke would still be accumulating, except… wait. Was the burning pot _still on the stove?_

What the fuck, Allison!

Klaus, throwing the dish towel over his shoulder, quickly took the pot off the stove, dumped it in the sink, and turned all the burners off.

“Allison!”

“What?” she asked, covering her mouth with one hand and still waving the rag with the other. Looking over at the mess of burned shit in the pot she groaned. “It’s ruined.”

Klaus gave her an incredulous look. “I’d say so, yeah. Why didn’t you take it off the eye though?” he asked, voice full of _what-the-fuck_ energy. Because, seriously, what the fuck?

She glared at him. “Because it was smoking! I had to take care of _that_ , obviously.”

“Yeah, but if you leave the burning thing on the stove then it will, get this, _continue to burn._ It’s a real thinker, I know.”

“Yes, well. I- You just- The!” she sputtered. “Well it made sense in the moment!”

They made eye contact for a second and then after a moment glares turned into laughter.

“Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. But in my defense I was stressed!”

Klaus grinned at here and turned on the sink water to let the burned pan soak in some water. Hopefully that would help when it came time to clean later.

“Excuses, excuses.”

The smoke was already clearing up, though the horrid burnt smell still remained. It was a shame the windows in the room didn’t open.

“What were you trying to make anyways?”

Allison sighed. “Chicken curry. You can see the results.” She looked over at the mess and frowned. “Patrick used to do all the cooking when we were together and this is one of Claire’s favorite dishes. And I just thought…” she trailed off with another heavy sigh.

“It doesn’t matter what I thought. It’s ruined now.” She pursed her lips.

Klaus looked at her with sympathy. He couldn’t imagine it, being apart from your own child who was across the country, trying to do anything to feel closer to her but falling just short of the mark.

He couldn’t do anything about that mess of a situation, but he could help his dear sister feel a little better at least. But first, “Come on. Let’s clean up and then we’ll make something together!”

Allison hesitated, collecting some of the dirty plates and cooking apparatus scattered around. “I don’t know, Klaus. I’m not sure I’m up for this anymore today.”

“Oh come on,” he said, jostling her shoulder good naturedly. “Not up for spending time with your favorite bro?”

She gave him a sideways glance. “My favorite brother?” she asked, teasing.

“Don’t even pretend like I’m not. I mean, I’m _obviously_ the most fun of all of us.”

“Obviously,” Allison repeated with a slight smile.

“C’mon,” he goaded. “You know you want to.”

Allison glanced around at the disaster the kitchen had turned into. “I don’t know…”

Klaus hummed and went over to the fridge and began pawing through the items in there. It was a lot of leftover takeout, some eggs, and moldy cheeses, but aha! There were still some uncooked chicken strips in there. He could work with that. All they really needed now were some spices and flour.

Klaus pulled out the chicken, milk, and the carton of eggs, placing them on the counter. “Nope! Too late! We’re making chicken together.”

Allison walked over to the counter where Klaus had placed the items. “Oh, are we?” she asked, amused.

“Yes, we are. Now go find me some salt, pepper, basil, garlic powder, paprika, and cayenne.”

She squinted her eyes at him. “All of that for chicken?”

“What? Scared of a little spice?” Klaus goaded, grabbing down the flour and sugar. “And _to think_ you were going to make curry,” he scolded. “For shame!” He wagged a finger in her direction.

Allison sputtered as she placed the gathered spices on the counter. “That’s different! Curry is supposed to be spicy. This is just regular chicken.”

“Allison, sister dear, you need to learn how to live a little. Embrace the flavor! Don’t rich people foods have spices and shit?”

“I mean, I guess so? I don’t know. I don’t really do the cooking.”

Klaus hummed and poured some milk and cracked an egg into a bowl, whisking them with a fork. “Patrick did the cooking, you said?”

Allison glanced down as a flash of sadness crossed her face, so quickly gone that Klaus second guessed whether or not it was even there in the first place. “Yeah, he did.”

A beat passed. “Anyways, what do you need me to do?”

“All the spices, flour, and the sugar in that bowl over there.” He nodded to a semi-clean mixing bowl next to Allison’s arm.

“How much?”

“We don’t use measurements here! Feel it in your soul!”

Allison laughed, a bright sound that lightened the mood in the room just enough that Klaus felt comfortable enough to ask, “So Claire likes curry?”

“Oh yeah. Can’t get enough of the stuff. Anything hot enough to burn your mouth off, she wants. Neither Patrick or I can stand it!” she chuckled. “Where that child got her tastes from I’ll never know.”

Klaus hummed and began chopping the chicken into cubes. He couldn’t relate. Spicy food was his middle name. Well, technically he didn’t have one, but if he did it would be spicy food. Or maybe spicy ass. Or hot ass bitch. He had options.

He broke his train of thought with a loud bang of the cutting board on the counter. “Well, that’s easy then!”

“Hmm?”

“Spicy is easy. Just throw a bunch of hot shit in there and you’re done! Easy peasy.”

“But if you add too much then no one can eat it.”

“Nah, then you’re just a coward.”

“Then I am _definitely_ a coward. Is this good enough,” Allison asked, gesturing at the bowl.

Klaus glanced over and hummed. “Yeah, that looks good.”

“Why are you cubing the chicken?”

Klaus looked at her with a manic smile. “Because we’re making chicken nuggets!”

“You can make those?”

“Of course you can. It’s just like making a normal chicken dish but smaller. And better.”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense. I guess I only ever got chicken nuggets for Claire from a drive through. Or frozen.”

Klaus finished cutting the last of the chicken strips and went over to wash his hands. “But now you can make them for her fresh! It’ll be good bonding next time you see her.”

“I—” Allison hesitated. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. I hadn’t thought about it like that before.”

Klaus stepped back from the sink and wrapped an arm around Allison’s shoulders.

“It’ll all be okay in the end. You’ll see. After all, we didn’t prevent the apocalypse and go through puberty again just to be defeated by a measly court of law!”

She turned her head to the side and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I am. When have I ever been wrong before? I’ll tell you when, never. Now dunk the chicken in the milk mix and then in the flour mix.”

Allison nodded. “Never?” She repeated in a playful tone as Klaus grabbed some oil and poured it into a skillet, placing it on the stove. “Not even that time when you thought that licking batteries would give you pubes? Or that peacocks were a type of Asian vegetable?”

“Not even then! I maintain that my logic was sound.”

“Uh huh.”

“Exactly! Glad you agree.”

They worked together in silence for the next few minutes, enjoying the easy peace that came over them. There were so few instances that they were able to work in flawless tandem like they did when they were younger and the cooperation filled the room with an almost palpable nostalgia. 

It was nice, Klaus thought. He hoped it would continue past this little island of time they had made for themselves.

“I just miss them,” Allison said finally, breaking the silence.

Klaus hummed. “Yeah. I get that.” Klaus understood loss more than most and not at all in other ways. Loss. Such a nice word to convey the vastness of the looming concept of death. Klaus had never much understood what people meant when they spoke of loss. After all, for him people were never truly gone. Changed, yes. _Turned violent and bloody and mindless and horrifying._ But gone? No.

Though wasn’t that just another type of loss? The loss of what you once were, changing into someone new. Something new. Changes out of your control and visible to no one but some two bit junkie and his equally dead brother.

But, no. Allison was talking about yet another kind of loss. The kind that isn’t permanent or a concrete end like death but one that burned just the same in the heart. Claire and Patrick weren’t lost from life, just from _her_ life. And that might hurt even worse in the end. They’re still there but you can’t get to them, behind a see through cage with no door or key.

Lost but not lost. Gone but not gone. It wasn’t so different from Klaus’s form of loss in the end. The dead were gone, yes, but not yet fully lost from this world. But all the same they were still lost to anyone who would dare to still care about them.

Just like Ben. Just like _Dave_. Gone but still here. A ghost, supposedly accessible, but still lost as Klaus struggled day after day to summon him. That was never his specialty, despite what his siblings always thought. He never had to summon the ghosts for them to come to him. They were always so intrusively _there_.

Except for Dave, apparently. Lost like Claire and Patrick, there but not there, accessible but not.

Klaus sighed. “Yeah, I get it.”

Allison paused from scooping the chicken out of the pan to give him a considering look. “Do you,” she asked, gentle and surprisingly free of judgement.

“You know how I went to ‘nam, right? During the whole Hazel and Cha-cha debacle.”

Allison hummed agreement. The whole _I got kidnapped, tortured, and sent back in time and fought in a war_ talk had only been slightly less painful than the _dad killed me hundreds or thousands of times and none of you knew_ talk. 

“I met someone there- Dave. He was… he was wonderful. And I loved him _so much_ Allison, so much that I fought in a war for ten months just to be with him.”

“Wow. That’s,” she paused. “That’s something. That’s a lot. You must have been something special.”

“He was. He was funny and smart and handsome and he loved me for me, not for what I could do and I loved him all the more for it.”

“What made you come back then?”

“I lost him.”

“Oh, Klaus—” she started, voice filled with pity.

“Now!” Klaus interrupted. “I know what you’re thinking. _But Klaus can’t you just bring him back? I mean after all he is dead,”_ he said in a mocking tone that sounded suspiciously like Five. “But unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. I’m trying, mind you, but it isn’t that easy.”

He paused for a moment, idly poking at the now-cooked chicken nuggets. “So I guess I just wanted to say that I get it. You lost them. They’re still there but you lost them and it hurts even if you’ll get to see them again.”

Allison huffed a humorless laugh. “I think you hit the head right on the nail there. Lost but not gone. I think that’s exactly what it feels like.”

“Like grieving without feeling like you’ve earned the right to.”

“Exactly,” Allison said. She gave him a gentle smile. “You know, I never would have thought that you’d be the sibling who understands what I’m going through.”

Klaus grinned, mischief sparking in his eyes. “What? Who’d you think it’d be? Luther? The only thing he’s lost is his sense of humor,” he teased, grinning.

“Klaus!” Allison chided. “That’s not nice.”

“Nice? Me? I don’t know her.”

“I mean,” Allison started, bumping into Klaus with her hip. “If you’re going to make fun of Luther at least don’t lie about him. We both know Luther never had a sense of humor to begin with.”

Klaus stared at her for a moment, mouth gaping wide. “You!”

“Me?” Allison echoed, feigning innocence.

“I cannot believe you just made fun of Luther.”

“Well, he makes it too easy sometimes.”

“You know what? You’re right. We should make fun of him more.”

“Now let’s not be mean. He’s still our brother.”

“Nononono. You opened this can of worms! You don’t get to take it back now! He has too much body hair and he talks like a 17th century aristocrat sometimes and I can’t take him seriously.”

They made eye contact as both Klaus grinned ear to ear and Allison tried not to laugh. Failing that she joked back, “I don’t think he’s updated his style since we were fifteen.”

“He says the word ‘mayonnaise’ wrong.”

“He asked me how a tampon works a few weeks ago.”

“I caught him sniffing his sweaty gross shirt once and then put it on.”

“Klaus. I’ve seen you do that before.”

“Yeah but I’ve been homeless. What’s his excuse?”

“Lack of parental guidance?”

“Yeah,” Klaus drawled. “That’ll do her.”

Just then, speaking of the Devil (or part-monkey, mostly-human, all-asshole trying to be less of an asshole, in this case), Luther walked into the kitchen. Everyone froze for a moment before Allison and Klaus broke out into peals of uncontrolled laughter that would subside for a second before they both looked back at Luther and his confused face and started up again.

“What’s going on,” he asked, voice hesitant, once they had calmed down enough that he could get a word in.

“Nothing,” Allison said with a large smile.

“We just love you.”

“I… love you guys too?”

“Want some chicken nuggets?” Klaus asked.

“Yeah, they’re only a little burnt.” she added, holding out the plate of chicken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excited to find out what happens next? :0 me too...
> 
> Also sorry for bullying Luther. But he kind of deserves it and he really does just make it way too easy.


	6. Ben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A heart to heart and a forced vacation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait everyone! There is really no excuse but all of your lovely comments inspired me to get back on my bullshit and finish this up. Hope it was worth the wait!

Ben and Klaus’s relationship had been… odd, to say the least after their return to the future. Not to say that it hadn’t been strained when they were in the past. The sudden shock of not being dead and being able to actually  _ talk _ to his siblings and people other than Klaus had caused them both to drift apart from each other over the past few years, quite unintentionally on Ben’s part, though he suspected a bit of intentionality from on Klaus’s end. His self-esteem was lower than the Mariana Trench and, though he never said it, Ben was convinced that Klaus let them drift under some misguided effort to “free” Ben from having to deal with Klaus.

Regardless of the reason, they weren’t going to be able to avoid each other for very much longer because Ben was scheming.

Yes, scheming. Because planning implied a certain sense of normalcy, which their family was severely lacking, and plotting and conspiring each had too much of a supervillain vibe. So, Ben was scheming. 

He had looked up their destination, booked sufficient hotel rooms (let it never be said that he didn’t learn from the Great Hotel Incident of 2003, courtesy of six puberty-ridden teenagers in a single room), and had devised a surefire way to make sure all seven members of the Academy ended up at the same place at the same time and under their own volition— trickery and guilt-tripping. Not that he would admit to that last part.

He roped Allison and Vanya into the escapade first— no sense in going for the harder to catch siblings first after all, better to save his energy and gather some allies first. They each agreed immediately, citing both an extreme need to get out of the house and a familiar mixture of excitement and anxiety to spend more time together as a group without training or missions. Ben wasn’t above admitting that seeing his sisters’ mirroring smiles and child-like excitement had him grinning from ear to ear.

They decided that Allison was going to tackle Luther and Vanya was going to take on Five, which left Diego and Klaus for Ben. Honestly, he didn’t think that Klaus was going to be too hard to convince and Diego always was a pushover when it came to Klaus so, really, Vanya was the only one who was going to face any real resistance in Ben’s not so humble opinion.

It would be easier if they could just  _ tell _ the others about the vacation beforehand without facing a mountain of arguing, but beggars and horses and all that. Impromptu surprises without time to fight and bitch was the best way to go here.

Ben decided that he’d deal with Klaus first, who was quite conveniently lounging in the living room attempting to knit… something? Ben honestly couldn’t tell. It might have been a scarf at some point but the size just didn’t work out at all. A blanket, perhaps? A really, really short and ugly blanket.

Klaus looked up as soon as Ben entered the room _ —  _ the ghosts must have been quiet enough to hear past for once. Really, Ben wasn’t sure how Klaus  _ didn’t _ have hearing damage at this point. “ Mon frère! What do you think?” he asked, holding up the whatever-it-is he was working on.

“Looks like a drunk tried to give birth to a blanket.” Ben knew that he should probably be encouraging non-drug related hobbies, but he was also confident enough in himself to admit that he could be a bit of an asshole. And, really, the shawl (?) looked like shit.

Klaus pulled the most over-exaggerated face of offense that he could muster. “Rude! Rude, Bennfier. Seriously, what would our darling siblings say if they heard you say such scandalous things?”

Ben smirked at him. “They’d agree with me.”

“Wrong! They’d agree with  _ me _ because this family has no culture,” he paused and tilted his head in thought, “with the possible exception of Vanya and her orchestra and shit, so they’d have no frame of reference for what makes good knitting or not!”

Okay, point. “Yeah but even  _ is _ it?”

Klaus hummed and examined the mess of yarn he was holding. “You know, I’m not really sure?”

“ — then!”

“But! It’s going to be the best of whatever it is that those fuckers have ever seen.”

“Right, right. I’m  _ sure _ that’s the case,” Ben drawled.

“Would it kill you to have some faith in me every once in a while, Bennifer?”

“A— don’t call me that.”

“Sure thing, Bennerino.” Ben sighed.

“And B— it very well might. We have no proof whatsoever that it won’t.”

Klaus hummed in agreement and nodded with faux concern. “Best not risk it, then. Wouldn’t want you to get a heart attack the first time you decide to be nice to me.”

Ben scoffed. “Oh  _ please _ , I’m nice to you all the time.”

“Since  _ when?” _ Klaus exclaimed, dropping the knitting supplies and staring at Ben with a bewildered expression.

“Uh? Since always. How many times did I drag your sorry ass out of the gutter? How—?”

“Uh, never?” Klaus interrupted. “You couldn’t touch anything! There was no dragging of any sort, ever.”

“Oh, I dragged you plenty  _ and  _ I still talked you into getting out of the gutter yourself!”

“No you—!”

“ _ How _ many times did I try and get you to go into rehab or tell you when you should leave a club or your one night stand’s house because it was unsafe? Or let you know when I overheard important information?” Ben huffed, frustrated but only mildly at this point. This was a familiar argument and one each of them took comfort in rehashing from time to time.

Klaus needed the reminder that Ben really did care about him, even when he was being an uppity and capricious little asshole and Ben wanted to remind himself of all the things he  _ could _ do for Klaus when, as a ghost, more tangible efforts were impossible.

“Oh,  _ please _ . That wasn’t  _ nice _ . You were an asshole the whole time! Nag, nag, nag.” He took on a mocking tone. “Klaus, you need to get sober. Klaus, you used that needle already. Klaus, why do you never listen to me?”

Ben mimicked the mocking tone, “Klaus, you’re so annoying.”

“Yeah! Exactly like that!”

Ben groaned. “God, why did I think spending the next week with you would be a good idea?”

“Don’t bring God into this! She is  _ not _ involved,  _ and _ , if she were, she’d agree with  _ me _ !”

“Only to get you to shut up! Wait— wait, wait, wait.” Ben paused and put a finger to his lips, drawing his brows together while Klaus stared at him with an expression that said to get on with it already. “Wait. When did you meet God?”

Klaus looked at him with an odd expression “Like, a thousand years ago? At the rave with Luther? You were there, buddy, and I’m pretty sure I mentioned it during the whole heart to heart thing before we jumped back to the present, so you can’t even claim I was keeping it a secret,” he added with a pointed look.

“I… I wasn’t going to say that you were. I guess, I guess I just didn’t catch that part with everything else happening?”  _ God, _ what else had he missed? Just when he was starting to think he had finally caught up on all the bullshit Klaus had hidden from him over the years, there was something else that had fallen by the wayside. “Shit, Klaus.” Put out the kitchen just to turn around and see the house was ablaze.

“It’s chill! I promise. I mean she was all like ‘I don’t like you and it’s not your time yet so eff off’ at first but we were almost bros by the end of it, so it all worked out,” Klaus said with an all-too-earnest expression.

The placating tone and clear dismissal of the subject rubbed Ben the wrong way, even moreso than usual. “Why do you always do that?”

“Hmm?”

“Just dismiss everything. Like, you  _ met God _ . You’ve got to have some feelings about that. Like you met God and she said she didn’t like you. That’s gotta hurt,” Ben said gently, concern threading though is tone and his previous frustration forgotten for the moment.

“Nah, you know me. Nothing fazes me, not even that time with the chocolate pudding and the wax warmer,” he said with a wink.

Ben narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t buying the innocent routine for a second. The cheer was obviously forced and Ben would bet his last dollar (not that he had more than three at the moment) that Klaus would break with the slightest push.

And, well, if there was one thing the Horror was good at, it was pushing things too far.

So, Ben pushed. “We both know that’s not true. How many nights did you stay up crying because some guy turned out to be a piece of shit or a john pushed too far? I  _ know _ you Klaus. I know you better than anyone else here so you can lie to me all you want and that’s your decision, just so long as  _ you _ know that I see right through it.”

Klaus gaped at him for a second before sputtering, “I don’t—, You—, But there.” He let out a hissing breath. “You’re a real shit, you know that?”

Ben smiled softly at him. He knew. 

“I know.”

Klaus sighed and flopped back on the couch. “If you’re going to psychoanalyze me at least sit down. Make it look like a  _ real _ therapy session.” He lifted his legs in a clear indicator that Ben was supposed to sit there with Klaus’s feet in his lap.

Ben felt a slight twinge of what would have been annoyance if he weren’t overwhelmed with a sudden rush of affection for his most annoying and most precious sibling and at the clear display of trust that was being shown here. Not that he wanted to be a foot rest, but still.

Nobody spoke for several long moments after they were settled. “It did hurt,” Klaus began and though the words were barely above a whisper Ben had to stop himself from startling at the unexpected words and the uncharacteristic candor. 

“I mean, she created everything and so she must have created me as well. So, yeah, it hurt. We were kinda buddies by the end of it. Or, at least, her pity for me seemed to outweigh her disdain, but yeah. Kind of the same thing.”

“Not really,” Ben couldn’t help but disagree.

“Hush. It’s Klaus’s talking time now.”

“Sorry.”

Klaus gave him a small smile. “It’s okay. You’re just a stuck up know-it-all who always has to correct me.”

Ben opened his mouth to protest vehemently before snapping it shut with an aggravated look.

Klaus flipped him off but his smile and relaxed posture slipped into something more tense as he continued talking. “I could deal with dear papá not liking me very much— I don’t live to please abusive old men after all. And I mean, even I don’t like me very much.” And  _ fuck _ , that one didn’t feel like Ben was being stabbed in the chest. “But to hear the person who created everything, created  _ me _ doesn’t even like me? That one stung a bit.” He sighed. “More than a bit, if I’m being honest.”

“I can imagine.”

“I’m really glad that you can’t Benny.”

“I… yeah.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, feeling the heaviness in the air and unwilling to broach it further. 

“When did she tell you that?” Ben asked finally.

“The first time I saw her, at the rave.”

“Christ.”

Klaus laughed, though it was completely devoid of humor. “I know, right?”

“And then Dad killed you. On purpose.”

“Yep,” Klaus responded, popping the ‘p’.

Ben picked up one of the skeins of yarn and started messing with it in his lap, needing the distraction and not feeling brave enough to look directly at Klaus for the conversation. “I can kind of see why you didn’t tell anyone.”

“Really? Everyone else acts like it’s completely unthinkable that I just went along with it. Like it was just  _ that much _ worse than all the other bullshit he put us through. I mean, look at Diego. Reggie would keep him trapped underwater for  _ hours _ . The boy still can’t swim without a proper panic attack. And, and Vanya! Just look at Vanya. She  _ definitely _ had it worse.”

Ben stopped messing with the yarn and gave Klaus a side glance. He met Ben’s eyes with an unreadable expression. Weariness perhaps? The fear that Ben was about to agree with the bullshit that he just spouted and say it really wasn’t all that bad?

“First of all,” Ben started, “trauma isn’t a competition. We don’t need to compete for who had it worse because we all had it pretty shitty and it won’t make any of us feel better. Second, there’s a difference between the torture he put us all though, and, I’m not denying your point that he abused all of us, but there’s a distinct difference between  _ that _ and knowingly killing your own child.”

“We’re not really his kids,” Klaus felt the need to point out. “And death doesn’t work the same for me as everyone else.”

“Really  _ not  _ the point. You  _ do _ get the point, right?”

“Enlighten me,” he groused.

“He shouldn’t have done that to you Klaus. There was a line and he crossed it with all of us but with you he completely overshot that line by a country mile. He shouldn’t have done what he did to you. It was cruel and it was wrong and you didn’t deserve it and I am  _ so _ sorry we didn’t notice until it was too late. I speak for everyone when I say we will  _ never _ let anything like that happen again and we should have done better the first time. But, no matter what, we love you and we care about you and we want you to be safe, from others and from yourself. So if someone tries to hurt you again, we’ll take care of it, together. And if  _ you _ try to hurt yourself, through either action or inaction, we’ll deal with that together too”

At the end of his speech Ben heard a sniffle and looked over to see Klaus holding back tears. “Do you really mean that?” he asked, voice wet.

“Of course, Klaus. I love you.  _ We  _ love you,” he added, staring intently into Klaus’s eyes. This was one point he wouldn’t let slip by again.

“Thank you.”

“So, in the spirit of doing better, what can we do to help you and make things right?”

“You don’t need to make things right, Benny. Things were never not-right.”

“They  _ were _ and I think after some forced family togetherness you’ll start to realize that a little bit more.”

Klaus huffled. “Family togetherness? You’ve met those idiots, right? We couldn’t even do ‘ _ family togetherness’  _ when the world was ending.”

Ben smiled from ear to ear. “Now there’s where I come in.” Klaus hummed in question. “Because I am  _ making _ us all spend the next week together.”

“Oh? And just how are you going to enforce that?” he asked in an overly sweet voice that spoke of how contrary he was about to be of any further suggestion of game nights or group therapy or whatever else Ben was about to suggest.

“Because,” Ben started, “ _ you _ never took me to the beach like you promised!”

Klaus froze for a second before bursting out laughing, previous tears long forgotten. “ _ What?  _ When did I promise to take you to the beach?”

“Years ago. You promised to take me to the beach if I would, and I quote, stop nagging you for five  _ goddamn _ minutes. And while  _ you _ might have forgotten,  _ I _ never have.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Klaus drawled sarcastically. “I was a bit busy, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“No, I noticed. I just don’t care.”

“Hmph. Well, there’s nothing stopping you from taking your not-so-ghostly ass to the beach yourself.”

“No, I know.” Ben looked at Klaus expectantly.

“...so?”

“....so let’s go.”

“What, now? I’m… I’m busy. See?” Klaus said, holding up the not-blanket afghan thing again.

“Bring it with you. And hurry up or we’ll be late for check-in.” Ben shoved Klaus’s legs off him and stood up, grabbing at Klaus’s hands and tugging.

Klaus sputtered and pulled back against Ben, refusing to get up off the couch. “Wait, what? Reservation? Did you  _ plan _ this?”

Ben scoffed. “Obviously. Now get up, get packed, and help me threaten Diego into driving us.”

“This is all a little sudden, don’t you think? I’m not, like, mentally prepared or whatever for a sudden outing with all six of my least-favorite siblings.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Ben said, tugging even harder at Klaus, trying to pull him bodily off the seat. “Less time to kick up a fuss and make excuses not to go.”

“But Ben,” Klaus complained as Ben finally succeeding in pulling him off as he dropped unceremoniously to the floor. “Fuck! That hurt, you bastard! I’m fragile.”

“Your ego is fragile, more like. Now hurry up or I’ll tell our siblings how you denied me my one fervent request as your dearly departed sibling to see the ocean. How, for years,  _ years! _ I tried to get you to take me and you, you heartless sibling of mine, refused.”

Klaus stood up and looked aghast. “I did not! You lying shit! You don’t even like the ocean. You said there’s too much said and you don’t trust how the jellyfish look invisible in the water.  _ And _ you’re not dead anymore so you can’t pull that card anymore!”

“They’re deceptive little tentacle monsters from hell,” Ben agreed, ignoring the final point, which was in no way, shape, or form even the tiniest bit valid.

“Oh, like you have a tentacle to stand on in that dog fight.”

“Shut up and get ready!”

“You’re so mean to me!” Klaus screeched as Ben pushed him out the door and started shoving him up the stairs.

“Don’t forget sunscreen. I won’t have our family photos ruined by you looking like a lobster.”

“I feel so unloved.”

“No, you don’t,” Ben shot back.

And he was right, of course. Despite everything Klaus could never say that he didn’t know that his siblings cared for him. He might forget it sometimes but never for very long and never again with all the affection Ben was about to force on him. 

A beach trip might not solve all their problems, Ben thought, as he watched Klaus pack some truly scandalous speedos into his suitcase, but it was a good first step to acting like a real family, instead of a bunch of idiots forced into being a barely functioning crime-fighting team.

Things weren’t perfect, not yet, but they were already several steps down the path to getting there and this was just another one because they weren’t going to forget Klaus again. They weren’t going to leave any of their siblings alone, scared, and abandoned because they were going to start actively making choices to look out for one another. They were making the active choice to be and act like a family and there was no going back now.

“I don’t have time for a  _ family vacation!”  _ They both looked up sharply as they heard Five screech down the hallway. They grinned at each other

  
_ Yeah _ , Ben thought with a contented smile _ , this trip would be good for all of them _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the ending is rushed but I hope you all enjoyed it! Please drop a comment or kudos if you did. (Also, keep a lookout because I'm thinking of writing a few scenes of that future beach trip in the coming weeks)

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments give me life and fuel my desire to write! Scream at me on tumblr @acescard if you want.


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